Zack: Wool is warm, but unpleasant. In the wrong conditions it can be almost painful to wear. Like all things painful there is, of course, a fetish for it on the Internet.

Dr. Thorpe: A coworker of mine is really into knitting, but in her online travels she made a shocking discovery: some people are really, really, really into knitting. She ran across a disturbing little enclave of erotic knitting enthusiasts at wolltraum.de, and immediately handed the link over to me, figuring I'd know what to do with it. After laughing myself stupid, I pitched it to Zack as a job for Fashion SWAT. After laughing himself stupid, he accepted.

Zack: How could I refuse? These folks really know their sweaters. Biblically.

Dr. Thorpe: I want to hug grandma, but I just don't know where to begin...

Zack: I'm expecting tiny grandma to climb out of her mitten and fight a spider with a toothpick

Dr. Thorpe: Yeah, I'm getting total shrink-ray vibes here.

Zack: It's the perfect outfit to just look cool, hang out, and have a heat stroke in the middle of winter. I think she's actually crying from the heat.

Dr. Thorpe: I think the most amazing part of this whole thing is the fact that, sure, I don't know, maybe some people really dig huge wool outfits that look like grandma was knitting a scarf and then had an alzheimer's flare-up and forgot where she was in the process and just kept going and going until she wound up with a big scarfy carpet mitten hoodie fringe catastrophe. Maybe she's pulling that look off perfectly. But still. Why the fuck those shoes?

Dr. Thorpe: Did she intentionally pick the most incongruous goddamn shoes in the universe? Did she go, "wow, what would look absolutely worst in the fucking world with my giant huggable shit-sack... oh, how about these patent-leather Nazi gardening boots!"

Zack: Why does she care? She's going to have cats sleeping all over her! It'll be a dream come true.

Dr. Thorpe: I don't think you get it, man. When you're trying to pull off a look like this, that's the absolute most important time to make sure you're nailing that shit one thousand percent.

Zack: I remember someone warning me not to inhale dust from fiberglass. They said all of these tiny little glass threads would get into your lungs and it would be agonizing and you could drown on your own blood. I think that's about the comfort level this 45 pound wool blanket/pancho would offer.

Zack: You might as well make a wetsuit out of poison oak.

Dr. Thorpe: This thing looks like a giant magnet for those little dead skin flakes you hear about on TV that supposedly make up like three quarters of the total mass of your bedsheets.

Zack: Oh, yeah, definitely. By week two of wearing this thing it would be a crinkling mass of dead skin and pet dander.

Dr. Thorpe: She probably smells like a crematorium. A sweaty crematorium.

Zack: Yeah, this is the Treblinka of wool garments. Get ready to stand on an electrified plate while Nazi doctors watch through one-way glass to see if you'll sneeze.

Zack: "Ja, Klaus, INCREASE ZE HISTAMINES!"

Dr. Thorpe: I think the fact that we've mentioned Nazis twice already owes less to the fact that this is a German site and more to the fact that what we're seeing here is an unprecedented atrocity.

Zack:Maybe we are taking things a bit far comparing the very first one to the Holocaust. This is...hmmm...maybe more of a Saddam rape room. No? whatever it is, the UN definitely needs to be involved.

About This Column

Fashion SWAT... the fashion industry is obsessed with impracticality. We know that what designers create was never meant to be worn by the grimy masses, but that doesn't somehow diminish how ridiculous many of these costumes are. Make no mistake, they are costumes, and like a Halloween prize pageant we will turn our discerning gaze on the grievous fashion misfires of Paris, Milan, and New York. We're not pulling any punches, and we're definitely not interested in making any friends. We're Joan Rivers without Melissa Rivers to temper our screeching. We're the Fashion Police in jack boots. We are Fashion SWAT.